26 Years Ago, Eminem Released The Marshall Mathers LP, His Most Acclaimed Album

Eminem exploded onto the mainstream rap scene with The Slim Shady LP, his 1999 major label debut. After winning the Grammy for Best Rap Album and Best Rap Solo Performance ("My Name Is"), it was worth wondering what the Detroit rapper could do for an encore.

What Eminem did was drop The Marshall Mathers LP on this day 26 years ago, May 23, 2000. By that point, "The Real Slim Shady," the album's first single, was already a hit, and the acclaim just kept coming after the whole project was unveiled.

Twenty-six years later, The Marshall Mathers LP is still regarded as Eminem's greatest album, having left an indelible mark. Slim Shady would go on to release albums that contained bigger individual hits, but none that had the full impact as The Marshall Mathers LP.

An instant, and lasting, success

Inspired by Eminem's given name, The Marshall Mathers LP debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 200 and stayed there for eight weeks. It also sold 1.76 million copies in its first week, with Rolling Stone later naming it the Album of the Year for 2000.

Controversial lyrics and subject matter did little to slow down the album, and in some cases, likely enhanced its popularity. The defiance behind "The Way I Am," the dark and twisted saga of "Stan," and the horrific shock value of "Kill You" all helped make the LP a classic.

"The Marshall Mathers LP is indefensible and critic-proof, hypocritical and heartbreaking, unlistenable and undeniable; it's a disposable shock-rap session, and the first great pop record of the 21st century," wrote Entertainment Weekly's Will Hermes in June 2000. "It plays to a culture obsessed with celebrity gossip and talk-show voyeurism at the same time it rails against that culture. It is, one predicts, going to sell like penny lemonade on a hot day."

Eminem's best work

The Slim Shady LP kicked down the doors, The Eminem Show set records and earned widespread acclaim and even some of Em's more recent albums have their moments. Still, The Marshall Mathers LPhas been ranked as his masterpiece by multiple publications, including Billboard, which put it at No. 1 in 2024.

"The beats are fire, but the bars steal the show," Billboard's Damien Scott argues. "As a newly minted superstar who was still trying to prove himself to the wider hip-hop world, Eminem still had something to prove. His wit was razor sharp and his lyrical dexterity was second-to-none.

"The few guest features - Sticky Fingaz, Snoop Dogg, Bizarre - do admirably well, but they all distract from the main attraction that is Eminem. The lewdness of TSSLP is balanced with scathing social commentary, which saw Eminem attacking everything from pop stars to U.S. presidents in equal measure. He was mad at the world, but unlike in albums from later in his career, he was able to forge his emotion into needle-sharp barbs."

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 23, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 23, 2026 at 5:12 AM.